Carr's season review

Academy Director Tony Carr was pleased with the progress made this season but has high hopes next year could be even brighter for West Ham United's future.

The production line claimed its latest first-team player with Jordan Spence's debut in the final Barclays Premier League match of the season while the U18s saw a number of starlets establish themselves on the edge of the senior set-up.

The likes of Jordan Brown, Cristian Montano, Sergio Sanchez and Callum Driver have progressed to regular reserve-team football. Lower down schoolboys Robert Hall, Blair Turgott, Matthias Fanimo and Dylan Tombides have shown great promise at U18 level.

With seven schoolboys, including scorers Fanimo and Tombides, in his 16-man matchday squad against Charlton for the final match of the season - a 3-0 home win - Carr believed the future was bright within the Academy of Football. Results may have been mixed but he has always stressed his work his about individual development.

"I've always said this year that we've been inconsistent. If you look at our overall record, we've won ten, drawn eight and lost ten.

"I thought we could have finished higher up the league, but we've lost and drawn games we should have won, and lost games we should have drawn. That hasn't happened in every game, but we've certainly been inconsistent.

"Defensively, we've been reasonably sound, but we've not quite scored enough goals for me, which has not given us the opportunity to win matches. Like always, though, youth football is all about experience and they will learn from this year.

"The majority of this year's youth team can play next year, so we're hoping they can go another step further and finish a bit higher up the league, stay in the FA Youth Cup a little bit longer and be a little bit more consistent in terms of results."

After winning just one of their first eight league matches, the Hammers youngsters enjoyed a better second half of the season, reaching the FA Youth Cup fifth round before losing to Newcastle United and finishing in the top half of FA Premier Academy League Group A.

The U18s made sure of a fifth-place finish in the standings thanks to goals from Fanimo, Jack Werndly and Tombides at Little Heath. Carr was pleased to finish what he described as an "inconsistent" season with one of his side's most comprehensive victories of the whole campaign.

"It was good to finish on a winning note. I thought in the first half it was a tough game. It was fairly even, but in terms of our passing and our possession of the ball it was poor, even though we went in 1-0 up at half-time.

"In the second half, we shifted the ball a lot quicker and got the ball forward a lot quicker. We defender better and won more of the second balls and we created a lot of chances.

"Once we scored the second goal through Jack, who is in a good run of form at the moment in terms of goalscoring, I didn't think they would come back. We could have gone on and won by four or five.

"We did get a third which was an excellent goal from Dylan, and might have had more. Robert had hit the post and we had other good chances, so I think we were worthy winners in the end. It was a nice way to end the season."